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corysub -> RE: What is "Constitutional" (2/28/2009 7:05:11 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SpinnerofTales
There has been a lot of talk in another posting (see..."Remember When Obama Said He Wouldn't Come After People's Guns) about what is and is not constitutionally protected right. It also speaks about the intent of the framers of the constitution in crafting certain amendments.
The fact is, however, the constitution itself answers that question. It set up the Supreme Court to interpret the constitution. By definition, what the Supreme Court decides is constitutional IS constitutional.
Therefore, if the supreme court decides, for example, that pornography is not protected speech under the first amendment, then it is not constitutionally protected. If they decide that the second amendment's language about a well regulated militia indicates that regulation is allowable to restrict people's right to keep and bear arms, then that is the constitutional law of the land.
I don't say that this a good thing or a bad thing, as I am still chewing that one over. But if you're going to go by the constitution, you have to go by all the constitution. Just as if you go by the bible, it would be wrong to say "I like the stuff about no killing...but don't at all think that no adultery stuff has any validity".
Just a little bit of fact to chew upon when things get quiet.
Well I've chewed and would like to offer the following for further chewing:
The Supreme Court is made up of men and woman appointed by the President and affirmed by the Congress with him/her generally passing a litmus test that conforms to the agenda of the party with the most power. At times...this could be unfair, at least in some peoples view.
Dred Scott v. Sandford was a highly controversial case that intensified the national debate over slavery. The case involved Dred Scott, a slave, who was taken from a slave state to a free territory. Scott filed a lawsuit claiming that because he had lived on free soil he was entitled to his freedom. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney disagreed, ruling that blacks were not citizens and therefore could not sue in federal court. Taney further inflamed antislavery forces by declaring that Congress had no right to ban slavery from U.S. territories.
Plessy v. Ferguson was the infamous case that asserted that “equal but separate accommodations” for blacks on railroad cars did not violate the “equal protection under the laws” clause of the 14th Amendment. By defending the constitutionality of racial segregation, the Court paved the way for the repressive Jim Crow laws of the South. The lone dissenter on the Court, Justice John Marshall Harlan, protested, “The thin disguise of ‘equal’ accommodations…will not mislead anyone.”
On the books as Federal Law until 1954 and Brown v. Bord of Education, a long time to wait for justice from the Justices. Can this happen again...."does a bear shit in the woods'??
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka invalidated racial segregation in schools and led to the unraveling of de jure segregation in all areas of public life. In the unanimous decision spearheaded by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court invalidated the Plessy ruling, declaring “in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place” and contending that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall was one of the NAACP lawyers who successfully argued the case.
Grutter v. Bollinger upheld the University of Michigan Law School's consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions. In her majority opinion, Justice O'Connor said that the law school used a “highly individualized, holistic review of each applicant's file.” Race, she said, was not used in a “mechanical way.” Therefore, the university's program was consistent with the requirement of “individualized consideration” set in 1978's Bakke case. “In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity,” O'Connor said. However, the court ruled that the University of Michigan's undergraduate admissions system, which awarded 20 points to black, Hispanic, and American-Indian applicants, was “nonindividualized, mechanical,” and thus unconstitutional.
Your intelligent kids might make it into a great college because they got fantastic marks on their test scores..but might not get the opportunity to attend the grad school of their choice because they failed the melanin test. Now that's fair..dontcha think; it does provide for diversity.
I guess my personal favorite was "Bush v Gore"...and one I am sure so many here would agree with you that "if your going to go by the Constituion you have to go with the entire Constitution"
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html
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